Take-Home cars and adding equipment

[EMTinGrandAm]

For those of you that have take home cars, or are the only officer assigned to a particular car, what's your departments policy on adding equipment, whether it be related to law enforcement (scanner, lights, push bumper) or not (a regular entertainment radio...)
Reason I ask, I was at Best Buy over the weekend, and looked into the Service bay from the sales floor, and there was a State Police vehicle in there,, asked the kid in the radio department why, since Im sure Best Buy does not service their communication radios or whatever, and he said the Trooper was having the XM Satelite Radio installed... I realize if you're in the car every day longer than you're in your bed, you want it to be more entertaining than your bedroom, (well you know what i mean) so i was just curious what the policy is... And what have you added into your car? Im still waiting to see the CVPI with indash DVD, its just a matter of time becsue I realize after seeing a local cop playing Solitare on his Mobil Data Terminal at a red light, anything is possible

[ogdogg16]

LOL out of curiousity what state are you in?

[phuzz01]

LOL out of curiousity what state are you in?

He is in Mass., and between driving a crotch-rocket, driving a Grand Am, installing strobes on his POV, and whatever his other hobbies are, he has had a pretty incredible amount of contact with Mass. law enforcement.

He has been unfairly pulled over numerous times, unfairly ticketed a few times, he has countless LE friends, and he runs across bad accidents with no emergency responders present weekly! :p

[EMTinGrandAm]

He is in Mass., and between driving a crotch-rocket, driving a Grand Am, installing strobes on his POV, and whatever his other hobbies are, he has had a pretty incredible amount of contact with Mass. law enforcement.

He has been unfairly pulled over numerous times, unfairly ticketed a few times, he has countless LE friends, and he runs across bad accidents with no emergency responders present weekly! :p

Get your facts stright
i have a permit from the RMV for the lights,
i have 2 friends and 3 family involved in LE thats 5, apparetnly thats too high for you to count to
and yea, usualy once a week sounds about right for the accidents, maybe a juicy one every 3 or 4 weeks,
and unfairly ticketed once, out of the (way too many) that i did get, yea one was unfair, i took the others like a man, paid my fines and am still paying for it every month through my insurance...
My other hobbies include photography and the live music scene, and learning (im a big dork what can i say)...
and what do my vehicles have to do with contact with LE? And I rarely have interaction with mass LE,
And back on subject, it was a RI cruiser having the XM installed...

[FPS207]

We are issued take home cars here in Georgia, and my department wants a memo requesting installation of additional equipment. If it is approved, then we install it. However, something like a radio, we can do without a request.

[EMTinGrandAm]

We are issued take home cars here in Georgia, and my department wants a memo requesting installation of additional equipment. If it is approved, then we install it. However, something like a radio, we can do without a request.

Interesting.. How many of you guys even listen to a radio? I guess graveyard shifts for Highway patroll can get quite quiet and booring at times....

[FPS207]

As most police officers tell you it is an art only learned by police. We can listen to the good times radio, police radio, cell phone, and carry on a conversation without ever missing a beat. Mind you it does take several years to master this craft. I forgot to mention in addition to all the above going on at one time, we can run code 3 with the siren blaring. Multi-tasking my a$$.

[Ianscape]

I worked for Best Buy in Newington, NH for 4 years before going LEO, and we actually did do some radio installs for PD's and some officers that had take home cruisers. Never did see XM installed, but there were also remote starters put in also.



Ian

[EMTinGrandAm]

Sounds like many of your dept's dont remove or dont opt to delete the am fm radio... interesting,,, most of the cruisers around here that ive seen have no radio... seen a few lil custom ones consisting of computer speakers and a walkman though...

[FPS207]

I usually have Rush and Hannity on every day, and the force radio set so that I can hear our traffic over the talk. If I hear one of my station's units go out with something, the talk radio gets turned down until that unit clears. Otherwise, I can listen to both radios at once while monitoring radar and drinking coffee.

And anyone who interrupts my coffee break or messes up my talk radio by speeding past me and requiring me to chase them down WILL get the full ticket.

All I have to say to that DC...... Amen.

[Rad Diver]

We are allowed to install additional lights and radios.

[MrMisterSU]

after seeing a local cop playing Solitare on his Mobil Data Terminal at a red light, anything is possible

Nice :D

[DeputyMadMax]

Were allowed to change things inside. Anything altering the outside appearance has to be approved. (Push bumpers etc) Inside their pretty easy going. I've had my new car 5 months now and here is a list of things I've done.

XM Radio
New Pioneer front speakers (Factory are weak ;) )
Zenon headlights (Had to get permission for this one, but WELL worth it)
Cell phone

And as soon as I find the time to take it in, I'm having keyless remote installed.

The XM is a must here. Rural area I have the choice of TWO radio stations that I can stand. And then I can only get those in about 60% of my patrol area, the rest is dead space. I was the first in the county (PD's and HP included) to install XM. After a couple have seen it, more and more are showing up. And the antenna works great just velcroed to the rear deck. No need to mount it on the roof.

Oh, and my laptop already has a DVD player in it. Although I never watch movies on it.

[EMTinGrandAm]

Zenon headlights (Had to get permission for this one, but WELL worth it)
.

Zenon lights? Did you get the true HID system that includes balasts? Probably at least $400? Or just the 50-100$ colored bulbs?
If you got the true Zenon lights, do you have a headlight flasher (Wig wag's) hooked to them? If so, it hasn't burned them out yet??? I heard that flashing them on and off will kill them in less than a minute... but if you jsut got the colored bulbs (which actualy offer less light, il get more info for you in that case) the wig wags will work fine since its stilla fillament bulb, not an electrical arc

[hwpd]

Our dept has a take home program.
One of our traffic enforcement officers has a scanner/radio installed to monitor trucker's talk.

And one of the patrol officers installed a pushbars on his patrol vehicle.